That Amazon would consider offering what is, essentially, Big Data as SaaS is not so far-fetched when you consider that it already owns the raw processing power and data stores. In fact, a number of companies use Amazon to run their Hadoop stores, including eHarmony.

"It would not be difficult for Amazon to offer such a service, since many of the company's major products are already on Amazon Web Services, and other legacy applications are being moved there," writes blogger Quentin Hardy. "That means that data management tools like Map Reduce (currently a feature in Amazon Web Services), payment security and fraud detection software, and Amazon's product recommendation engine could all be in the system."

Right now, if you want to get into Big Data, you can set up your own cluster using Hadoop at a cost of $4,000 per node, or you can rent space from cloud computing providers such as Amazon. Data stores are "sold separately," with many companies using Big Data to process their own internal data.

There are also a number of startups that could change how Big Data is used. So far, the discussion has been focused on the infrastructure - how Hadoop stores and processes data. But that conversation is shifting, according to GigaOm, as startups address how you can actually use that data "without hiring a team of Stanford Ph.D.s."

BloomReach is one of the companies GigaOm identifies, writing it is a SaaS-based product that takes a "very targeted, very hands-free approach to big data for its customers."

Another company, Continuuity, plans to make it easier to build applications that leverage cloud computing and Big Data technologies.

So it soon may be that we'll spend less time talking about Hadoop and MapReduce, but more time talking about the business value of Big Data services.

eHarmony (eDarling in some countries) DOES NOT HAVE any peer_reviewed Scientifc Paper by Academics (public scrutiny of findings) from different Universities showing eHarmony's matching algorithm can match prospective partners who will have more stable and satisfying relationships than couples matched by chance, astrological destiny, personal preferences, searching on one's own, or other technique as the control group.